Site Search Spam

Hey all,

I recently checked Google Search Console and saw that there are hundreds of spammy links after the www.mywebsite.com/search

Some of these are indexed and some are not. None are going to 404.

Does anyone know how to fix this/how to remove from indexing? I thought that the robots.txt blocks /search from being indexed but I was mistaken. 

I've been looking for a solution but I'm stumped and I don't want Google to slap my site with a spam penalty.

Thanks,

Bias

From Google: While Google does not use these reports to take direct action against violations, these reports still play a significant role in helping us understand how to improve our spam detection systems that protect our search results.

5 hours ago, derricksrandomviews said:

From Google: While Google does not use these reports to take direct action against violations, these reports still play a significant role in helping us understand how to improve our spam detection systems that protect our search results.

Thanks, does that mean:

1. These spammy links won't affect my site performance dispite being indexed (they're not on the site map, they're only shown in overall index)

2. I can ignore them

Or is there some action I need to take to get rid of them because they'll negatively affect my site.

Thanks again

Number 1,  if you post your site address we can check on it further for you. 

7 hours ago, derricksrandomviews said:

Number 1,  if you post your site address we can check on it further for you. 

Hi Derrick,

website is www.orionphilosophy.com

All of the spam links showing in google search console come after: "www.orionphilosophy.com/search?q=" followed by random Asian characters and emojis

Thank you for your response

Google search console is showing hundreds of thousands of pages of site search spam. Most of these are non-indexed but more than 55,000 are 'indexed but blocked by robots.txt'.

The links have clearly all been created by adding queries to our search bar, and are providing links to gambling websites.

Our traffic has been decreasing over the last couple of weeks and I am concerned that it is related to this. I have only just noticed this in search console but this has been ongoing for the last couple of months. 

Having done lots of research this evening, most of the suggestions to fix the problem can only be achieved by having a Wordpress site but as we have no access to robots.txt file or telling Google not to index certain pages, I am at a complete loss as to what to do and am desperately hoping that someone may be able to help.

We have removed the search bar off our site this evening in the hopes of preventing any more links being created, but as a very large travel blog, this is far from ideal.

What is your site URL? Can you post a few of these SPAM links you mention?

Thanks for getting back to me! 

I've attached a screenshot with some examples. Like I said, there are tens of thousands of these indexed (but blocked by robots.txt) and hundreds of thousands not indexed - it's the indexed ones I'm really worried about.

My url is www.alongdustyroads.com

Hi Bias - I'm currently experiencing exactly the same issue. Did you ever find a fix?

Update: There are now more than 175,000 of these 'indexed but blocked by robots.txt' pages in my search console and I am becoming increasingly concerned. 

If anybody has any suggestions or advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

See attached images. Something is going on at the registrar level with your site as these URLs are indeed getting indexed and Google is showing that that your alongdustyroads.com/search URL is not secure. And going to that URL results in an attempted file download. Looks like a hack to me.

Really hoping that someone who can help will see this.

The number of 'indexed but blocked by robots.txt' pages has increased to 270,000.

Squarespace have said that there is nothing they can do, that this isn't a security problem because the site is secure, we're just getting attacked by site search spam bots.

I am at a complete loss as to what to do and desperately need some advice.

I'm not able to reproduce what @MarkmenStudio is reporting but that doesn't mean a whole lot.

I don't have a solution. As far as I can tell Squarespace is correct. Your site is secure and you've not been hacked or anything like that. Those hundreds of thousands of URLs don't exist on your site nor are they contained on your site. Since they don't exist on your site Google is not indexing them from your site.

What appears to have happened is some scum have used you as a target to get their nonsense into Google search results.

Given the insane volume of links I think you'll need to try to work with Google to get them removed and perhaps identify where this junk is coming from. How you'd go about actually getting in contact with a real caring human being at Google, I don't know how you'd do that.

GSC does have a remove link request feature and you might try that on an example URL to see if it has an effect on that one. I don't see that being a practical solution for the ginormous numbers you are facing.

Oh and removing your search from your site I don't think that will make a difference as I don't think your site is involved at all in this mess. When I say involved I mean the source of this issue is not on your site, somewhere external to your site is what is involved. If it was you'd probably be seeing highly elevated  levels of activity on your site, which you say has gone down.